Vase Catalog Number: Omaha 1963.480

Decoration:

Side A: Achilles battles an Amazon, the fight observed by gods and goddesses on Olympos (?). There is an owl between the warrior's legs and a serpent above the head of the Amazon. Added red: men's cloaks, shields, Amazon's helmet. Added white: female flesh. Side B: banquet scene, complete with assorted food on tables, a dog, lyre and wine-skin on wall. Added red: couches, men's hair, beard of central male, dog's neck and stripes on haunch. Added white: female flesh and piles of food. Animal friezes (A and B): facing swans with raised wings, framed by facing panthers. Added red: necks of panthers and broad stripe on birds' wings. Florals: addorsed lotus and palmettes. Added red: hearts of palmettes and cuffs of lotuses, same on A and B, but additionally on A for roots of palmettes. There are tongue patterns at the base of the neck and these are red.

Dietrich von Bothmer christened this painter, and besides this vase in Omaha, attributed another, a Tyrrhenian style ovoid neck-amphora in Paris, Louvre E 861, to the same hand; Beazley agreed with this new personality (Paralipomena 33, bottom and 34, top). The amphora in the Louvre has similar schemes of subsidiary decoration: addorsed lotus and palmettes (more carefully incised) on the neck; tongue-patterns at the base of the neck; floral frieze beneath the picture zone (alternating lotus buds instead of lotus and palmettes in this position on the name vase); a frieze of avians -- Sirens and swans with raised wings; a wide black band; zone of double rays. Though it seems somewhat importunate to discuss with certainty the style of a painter for whom we have only two vases, this decorator exhibits a similar attitude toward narrative on each piece: principals in the center, with attendants -- usually three -- facing on either side. Zeus gives birth to Athena with Olympian onlookers on Side A of the Paris amphora. Side B presents a series of high-stepping musicians while Side B on the Omaha vase shows a row of banqueters (see Detroit 24.119). As the name "Tyrrhenian" implies, these vases were intended for the Etruscan market, where their scenes of musicians and banqueters would have been popular, as later surviving Etruscan tomb paintings demonstrate.

The previous owner, Mathias Komor, in a letter to the Joslyn Museum attributed the Omaha vase to the Castellani Painter for whom we now recognize about forty vases. Although there are similarities, one can readily distinguish one from the other. The Castellani Painter nearly always uses two animal friezes following the florals under the picture zone (exceptions: three animal friezes, Louvre E 831, ABV 103, no. 108; additional narrative frieze plus two animal friezes, Rome market, ABV 97, no. 25; no frieze, Louvre E 867, ABV 103, no. 113, von Bothmer Amazons, 10, no. 47). The Castellani Painter seldom separates the zone of rays from the second animal frieze, as the Omaha Painter does with the wide band of black (Civitavecchia 1706, ABV, 99, no. 60, von Bothmer, Amazons 7, no. 18 is said to have a black zone). Both painters use a protome of a panther as a shield device; such a device is characteristic of the Castellani Painter (D. von Bothmer, "The Painters of 'Tyrrhenian' Vases," AJA 48 [1944] 165). The panther protome on the warrior's shield on Side A of Omaha Painter's name vase stands high; one is quickly reminded of the shield devices displayed by the Affecter (see Omaha 1953.255) on the rare hydria, coincidentally from the same museum. The panther devices for the Castellani Painter are in added color, painted directly on the shield face. Among other subjects the Castellani Painter prefers Amazonomachies, some of which remind one of the composition on Side A of the Omaha vase: Villa Giulia 50652, ABV 98, no. 42; Marseilles 3088, ABV 99, no. 59; and Cassel T 386, ABV 99, no. 61 (cf. von Bothmer, Amazons, pl. XXIV.I; pl. XXIII.1; and pl. XXIII.2 respectively). For the narrative interests of the Castellani Painter: H. Hoffmann, "The Oldest Portrayal of The Niobids," Archaeology 13 (1960) 182-185.

Collection History:

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas C. Woods, Jr. (1963.480). Purchased from Mathias Komor, 1963.

Condition:

Glaze loss, crackling and minor pitting on handles and elsewhere.

Shape Description:

The inside of the neck is completely glazed; the underside of the base and the inside of the handles are reserved. The body of the vase is made in two sections with the join running noticeably through the middle of the picture zone. A raised fillet with incision above and below separates the neck from the vase body. Two bands in added red inside the neck at the top, another around the lip, red on the raised fillet, and on the edge of the base, one red band above the zone of rays and another beneath the animal frieze.

Sources Used:

Moon 1979, p. 40-41

Other Bibliography:

Para., 34, no. 2.

Essay: Moon No. 25

(W. G. Moon)